


startrails and rainshowers

by sisinala



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Emperor Kylo Ren tries to threaten Queen Rey but stumbles and proposes marriage instead, F/M, Gen, Hawksong inspired, M/M, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Minor Paige Tico/Poe Dameron, Other, Shifter AU, weird incomprehensible fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisinala/pseuds/sisinala
Summary: The avians and the serpiente have disliked each other for as long can be remembered. Ever since the serpent prince stole the avian queen generations ago, they have been at war. Rey, chosen Apprentice—heir to the avian crown—must  do her duty to her people. Even if it means surrendering her hand, and her life to the serpiente Emperor, Kylo Ren.





	1. The Ancestor

_Basta't umibig ka pa_

_Ito ang iyong pagkakataon, ang hinihintay na sandali_

_Maging mas malaki maging buo maging parola ng dilim_

_Maging pantalan, buksan mo ang iyong mga kamay_

_Para sa pagragasa ng mga alon_

_Sanayin ang iyong dibdib sa pagtanggap_

_Sa kanilang mga inaanod hindi lang sa kanya, umibig ka_

_Ibigin mo siyang mukhang di maalala_

_(Sa araw-araw na pagsakay ng tren)_

_Silang ibang wika lang ang kayang bigkasin_

_Silang duguan, silang markadong makasalanan_

 

_Just love more,_

_This is your chance, the moment you have been waiting for_

_Be greater, be whole, be the lamplight in the dark_

_Be a dock, open your hands_

_To the incoming rush of the waves_

_Train your chest to receive_

_Those who have washed ashore,  love not just them_

_Love the faces not remembered_

_..._

_Those  who only know to speak one language_

_Those bloodied, those marked sinners_

-          _Pagsisiga sa tabing dagat (Burning a fire on the beach), by Juan Miguel Severo_

 

1 - The Ancestor 

                “Lady, no.” Poe Dameron has seized her arm in a gentle grip. Normally, Rey was given a larger leeway than most Apprentices to the Kaiburr Crown, even more so when Poe was concerned. He was normally friendly to her, making the occasional jests and he was the least likely to give her any grumbled sighs for not being able to fly while guarding her. They may not be friends, but he was the face she most knew of her rotating guard. However, something must have been concerning him lately. He was more quiet, subdued. His hand wandered to the sword at his hip more often.

                Rey wanted to roll her eyes at him, but it was deeply frowned upon for a lady of her station. She could even imagine Paige, her fellow Apprentice and the one more likely to inherit the Kaiburr, raise her eyebrows slightly at her, an action which was _not_ frowned upon. 

                The feathers at his neck and the wings at his back were rising. Rey tried to reassure him with a look. When he sighed and dropped his wings, the rest of her guard did too. 

                Another cry sounded through the trees. 

                There was supposed to be no fighting today, with the moon about to block the sun at the height of noon. Both the avians and the draconi believe that the other was stronger due to the alignment of the heavens, and so it was both more quiet, and more dangerous. The air felt like it was holding its breath for something. The Alula wouldn’t even let her out of her room today if she knew she’d been visiting refugee camps again. But Holdo was busy plotting for the moment the moon leaves the sun’s embrace. She most probably won’t even be in the castle when Rey returns-- something Rey was counting on. 

                She steps forward, towards the sound. Her guard falls in step behind her, Poe hovering a bit ahead. She spots the huddled figure first, hidden amongst the thick roots of a tall tree. She smelled blood, and the feathers on her neck prickled. Whoever it was, they were trying to keep themselves quiet. 

                “Hello, do you need some help?” She tried to keep her voice as reassuring as possible. Warily, she approached the bundled shape. They were wearing some kind of heavy cloak, which made Poe all the more suspicious. Avians rarely used cloaks. It impeded the wings while in demi form and it was hard to transmute when fully shifting. 

                “Lady,” Poe warned once more. Rey ignored him. None of her instincts were flaring more than was necessary. Whoever this was, they were no threat. 

                “We might be able to help you. Is it alright if I come near?”

                “Please don’t.” The voice was male, deep but shaking. A hand appeared between the dark folds to clutch the cloth tighter. 

                “You’re hurt,” Poe said. He stood a few steps in front of them– too far for a serpiente to strike with fangs but close enough to observe, and bent slightly to attempt to peer through their hood. 

                “I know.” 

                “Lady, no–” Rey knelt next to them, putting a hand on their shoulder. 

                “I can heal you.” Yellow eyes lifted to hers. He could have been an owl or a hawk. But the orange and white snake coiled around his neck was too much of a tell. Only the serpiente would ever attempt to wind one of their ancestors upon themselves. 

                “Step away, Rey.” 

                “He won’t bite. Look at his eyes. Round.” Rey’s heart was beating faster, and she took deeper breaths to settle it. “He’s scared. Were you headed to a camp?”

                “I’m– I escaped. I’m an Ecdys, FN-2187. Please don’t make me go back there.” 

                “We won’t.” Rey was summoning magic on her hands, muttering a diagnosis spell under her breath.

                “What’s with the snake, friend?” Poe said behind her. She could hear the rest of her guard step forward, waiting with bated breaths. There were a handful serpiente refugees in the camps on the outskirts of the battlefields, owing to the fact that most of them were killed at the slightest hint of betrayal to the Emperor. The Ecdys, the draconi soldiers brainwashed to absolute obedience were even less likely to fly to a camp. If he was carrying a snake, he was most possibly a spy. 

                “It’s– I don’t know. He keeps following me. I tried to get rid of him a couple of times, I swear. But I saw him almost eaten by a wolf and I–”

                Rey’s instincts have never failed her. And they were screaming at her to save him. There was something broken in him, a void that Rey felt within her, too. Lost, they all are. 

                “That’s alright. Would you be comfortable lifting your cloak? I need to see the wound. What made it?”

                The snake was staring her in the eyes. It was a tiny thing, but Rey could sense that it was gauging her if she was a threat. She smiled at it. The man lifted his cloak. 

                “Another Ecdys. He saw me escape.”

                “Then his blade was poisoned.” Rey picked up a few notes of it and from the cold, creeping feeling it left on her magic, this man is not likely to survive the night. 

                “Yes.” 

                One of her guard stepped forward, an owl of white snowy wings. He was new, and Rey had not the time to ask his name yet.

                He unsheathed his blade. 

                “No,” Rey and Poe said at the same time.

                “It would be a mercy, My Lady.”

                “He has already escaped Death once today. We will not send him back. We will take him to a camp,” the other guards bristled at her level words. Rey had never achieved the cool, commanding voice Paige naturally seemed to have but she was an Apprentice, too. 

                “My Lady–”

                “The Lady has spoken,” Poe was already leaning down, placing his arms around the serpiente’s back and the crook of his legs, lifting him. 

                “This man would be dead before the day is done, we need to take him back to a camp, and fast.” He unfolded his wings, nodding at the other guard who spoke before. 

                “Thank you.” The man’s voice was too small, but the rest of them were avian and of course, they heard. 

                Rey felt one of her guard moving forward to carry her in the same way. Her great eagle wings, useless since she was rescued by the Alula as a child. She wrapped her arm around her guard, the snowy owl one. 

                “FN-2187 is too long, don’t you think? I’m not using it. Can I call you Finn instead?” 

                Finn smiled for the first time. 

…

                When they arrived at the camp, an avian soldier stationed there stepped forward to Poe and whispered in his ear. Rey saw his eyes widen, his feathers all lifted. 

                “We have to take the Lady back to the Keep. Now.”

                “What is it?” No one answered Rey for the short amount of time it took to get back to the castle. They didn’t even stop to let her walk the rest of the way to the Keep, as she requested of her guard whenever she was allowed to leave. The flight had been tense and quiet. Poe flew ahead of the others, carrying her,  heading the formation. They make no sound when they land, as all of her guard were owls. Their feathers part the air in such a quiet manner even avian ears would not be able to hear. 

                Poe hides deeper than what was to be expected of avians. His face had been unreadable. 

                But the Alula’s wasn’t. 

                In the light of the fading sunset, the shadows on her face are deeper, showing the lines that age and war have etched upon her forehead. Her blue-gray wings are held up slightly too high, forward onto her shoulders in defense. Mourning as she is, Amilyn Holdo would not let her feathers touch the ground. 

                Amilyn Holdo was the strongest woman she knew. A peregrine Apprentice inheriting the Kaiburr Crown before others were considered, she was a paragon of stability and quiet strength. Many think of her as strange, with her poetry and her colors, but she sees things beyond what most could. She was ruthless in battle and in court, and no one has ever heard her raise her voice. 

                Tonight, her face was set in stone and  her eyes are rimmed with red, shifting in stormy grays. She would not cry, not even for the children she kept as hers. Tears were a shame among the living and a disrespect to the dead. They swallow their grief and bury it in their rage.  

                “Rey,” she breathed as she took Rey’s hand. She held it tightly, squeezed it and did not let go. Rey stiffened as she did so, unused to the sudden closeness. 

                She had been taken straight to Holdo’s floor, and somehow she knew what the queen would say. 

                “Paige is dead, isn’t she?” A stiff nod. Holdo stares at her, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips tightened in a line. She let Rey digest the shock of the news. 

                “I’m sorry, my child. I’m sorry this has come to you.” 

                Rey was now the sole heir to the Kaiburr, and she did not know what to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaiburr Crown - not a crown, per se. It is the crystal on it that was important. Some of the avian Alulas have used the gem in various jewelry, armour and even swords. It is the symbol of the leader of the avians. The current Alula, Amilyn Holdo, wears hers on her wrist in a bracelet. It is said that the Kaiburr Crown chooses the Apprentices that were to inherit the title of Alula, but the process is known only to her and her council.  
> Alula - the leader of the avians, usually female.  
> Draconis - the great kingdom of the reptiles. They are led by the Serpiente, the snakes.  
> *Venomous snakes are known to have elliptical eyes, while non-venomous snakes have more rounded pupils  
> Ecdys - basically this universe’s equivalent of the Clones. They are taken at birth and raised to become Draconis’ soldiers


	2. The Threat

2 - The Threat

                After a few moments of holding her, the Alula Amilyn Holdo, the one they sing about in the songs, remembered herself and stepped away in such a regal manner that it felt like watching a statue rise. Her face serene, a hint of a smile at the lips. The storm in her eyes was calm, returning to piercing sky blue peregrine eyes made even more so by her soft violet hair. Rey recalled seeing her for the first time the day she was brought to the Eyrie, standing alone at the head of the council hall. Rey had been a dusty, grimy mess, dressed in borrowed and stolen rags, but the Alula received her no less. She barely remembered gaping at the tall towers, the polished stone that gleamed in the morning, and the height she was flown to reach the bottom level of the Eyrie’s Keep. But Holdo, she remembered. Holdo she would never forget. 

                Some of the desert was sand, the rest of it parched soil and dry rock. Whatever was not brown became so in time as the dry heat swallowed it. She made do with the hope that whoever left her would return. She lived one day dreaming of the next.

                Abandoned children of the sky sometimes never get to fly, with the hunger passing no strength to their wings that they drooped and had to be tied back when they scavenged the edges of the war for metal they would bring back to be cleaned or to be reforged. Once, she dreamed of finding a stone with the colors of the sky and trading it for her freedom. She woke with a new hollowness in her chest as she notched another mark upon her wall. The marks had been blurring into one another, a few more months and her marks would have reached the floor. She dreaded starting on another wall. She dreaded the day she would sleep surrounded by scratched out metal.

                And then they told her that she’d been chosen by the Crown and she was brought to Holdo. 

                Her hair had been different then, and she learned soon after that the queen had the habit of changing it as soon as the dyes started to fade. On that day, it was deep violets touched by oranges and yellows, sunrise on the edge of the horizon. Her eyes were in the same colors. 

                The Kaiburr Crown told of its master’s heart, their eyes in the ever-changing colors of the sky. 

                Whoever carried her to the room left in a flurry of feathers, leaving her with the only heir of the Kaiburr then. Rey had stared at her, afraid but not letting it show. The corners of Holdo’s lips quirked in a smile so unfamiliar even at the edges of their civilization, but it had calmed the pounding in her chest. Holdo had knelt in front of her, her dress dragging on the polished marble. 

                She did not look at her tattered clothes, her tied up wings nor the dirt in her hands. Holdo looked her in the eyes, peered through her soul. In her, Rey found comfort for the first time. 

_“Don’t be afraid, Rey. You’re home.”_

                And then she wore the Crown and the Keep never felt like home again. Holdo had to be the strength of their people, the untouchable queen with the goddess’ spirit and she never was Rey’s mother in the first place. 

                Holdo walked around her, staring into the drop beyond the railings of her balcony and sighing almost imperceptibly. She slowly turned to Rey with stony silence, pursing her lips. 

                “Tonight we mourn your sister in the Crown. Tomorrow I will announce you as my heir.”

                Rey’s heart leaped at her chest. She nodded nonetheless.  

                “Are you afraid, Rey?”

                How does one politely respond to that? 

                In the desert, Rey learned how to hotwire a fallen skyship, or how to strike a better bargain by acting bigger than she was, even how to nurse a broken bone all by herself. She also learned how to curse in so many languages, how to growl and show her teeth. Her tutors had tried to hammer at her eye-rolling,  her vulgar mouth, and her sloppy manners for years. What they have accomplished was something Paige would purse her lips tight and softly sigh at. 

                She loved Paige, truly. She treated Rey like her own sister. But Paige knew she would be Alula someday, and her responsibilities weighed on her like it did on Holdo. She became distant every passing year, and now she was simply gone. 

                Distantly, she wonders where Rose is. 

                “I am… confused.” It was the most polished truth she could get. She felt like a storm was brewing inside her chest, winds pulling in her ribs and crushing her under the weight. She hid a hand behind her back so Holdo would not see her clench her fist on her dress. It felt like the moment before freefall, wings flailing uselessly against the wind. 

                “The Force— It chose Paige. We all knew she was to be our queen.” She tried so very hard to keep her eyes on Holdo’s, but she was not as strong as her sister. She looked away, down to the warm amber of the tiles. 

                “And now the Force had deemed it not to be. It is never wise to impose our limited understanding of what we think the universe wills. Force knows I’m supposed to have taught myself this lesson already.” She turns, places her hands on the golden metal and grips it just enough. “Too much. We’ve lost too much.” 

                Silence.

                “When does it stop?” Rey whispers it to the air like forbidden knowledge. 

                “I don’t know, child. We’ve been fighting so long and I— I don’t know” She looks back at Rey, then, with strength in her voice and sadness in her eyes. 

                “Have hope.”

…

                Paige’s room smelled like pine leaves. 

                _“It smells like home, doesn’t it, Rose?”_ Her voice was still clear in her head.

                She sits quietly next to her last friend in the world, not quite words slipping and not forming coherent thought as she struggled for the right thing to say. She looks at Rose’s straight face and decides that the quiet was better. 

                Rose clutched a pendant in her hands, a remnant of the crow village they’ve been taken from. She and Paige shared halves, two crescent moons with the stars of their homeland on both faces. They were never seen without them. 

_“We don’t remember where home was, or what it looked like. But they remember it for us.”_

                 Rose passes her thumbs on the etched lines repeatedly. 

                “Rey, will you take me as your attendant?” Rey jumped at the suddenness of the question. “I want to stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go. They might ask me to leave.”

                “I won’t let them. You’re my sister, Rose. You told me that when we met.”

                Paige had smiled at her. Rose did too. She told her,  _“You and me, we are sisters.”_

                “You have to be a queen, now.” 

                “Yes.”

                “You don’t want to.”

                “No, I don’t.”

                “Paige wanted to. All she ever worked for, all she ever dreamed of was ending this war. I hoped one day she would, so we could go home.” Rey looked down at her calloused hands. They were all tainted, no matter how far they were from the battlefields when they began. The scars they bore from falling from sky ships or cutting themselves on metal would never fade, and they would never forget the hunger no matter much they were served. It was like the desert, how this war devours everything. 

                Even before they started fighting, they were nicked by its teeth.

                “I miss her.”

                “I do, too.”

                “Fight for her, Rey. Remember her when you take your crown. Promise me you’ll fight for her.”

                “I will.”

...

                After the announcement had been made, Rey watched her life shoot off the ground in a dizzying rush. Like a skyship burning magic to fly, she could barely hold onto its reigns. They wore white for a week, mourning their most beloved Apprentice and a hundred of their soldiers who stood with her. And then she was moved a floor up to Holdo’s floor, her room on the hall opposite hers. As the only heir, she was to take the Crown as soon as Holdo decides. Her open balconies were replaced by impenetrable stained glass windows, letting her see all that was their kingdom, reminding her of her purpose and responsibilities— beautiful and caging. Rose’s room was across Rey’s. 

                They barely settled, flying through so many council meetings at once. 

                Rey had little patience for court dealings, she much preferred being on the battlegrounds and the camps, doing what she could with her hands. She had no love for running her sentences ten times over in her mind before she was allowed to speak them for the sake of politeness. She fidgeted with her gown, piles of blue sheer shimmering fabric and embroidered with fairy bluebirds that moved whenever she breathed. Holdo was speaking about how the forces in the West were supposed to hold their positions and one of the generals was currently disapproving, his hologram shifting forward. 

                “Send another flight, my queen, we can take back D’Qar. ”

                “We hold.”

                “My Lady, the pass is one of our strongest footholds and as an owl I implore you to consider that our Shrine to the Goddess—”

                “I acknowledge this, General. You know I do. But we fought for it and we lost. The First Order has already sent two of their star destroyers and so we must pull back. Understand this first, General. My heart is with you but we cannot lose another flight, not right now.” Paige fell three months before she was to take the Crown, so her fall in the battlefield severely demoralized their soldiers. Rey looked to Holdo’s wrist, the Kaiburr resting on her right bracelet, where gray clouds rolled on the blue sky inside the crystal. It cleared as fast as it appeared, with the light shining on cotton white clouds.

                All the holograms were overtaken with static for a few moments, mild confusion on everyone’s faces. General Cypress, the one who had been speaking,  narrowed his eyes pointedly. 

                Something was overriding their most secure line of communication and though the council tried to suppress it, they were all visibly panicked. Eyebrows were raised, shoulders rose, there were more than a few who had feathers that stood on end. Small spirals of wind fluttered as they flapped their wings ever so slightly--the avian equivalent of a scoff. Rey fidgeted with her heavy eagle wings and smoothed her dress over the tops of her thighs in an attempt to calm herself. 

                She pressed her hand under the table, feeling for the magic that ran through the wiring and taking comfort in the familiar landscapes they twisted in. She sorted through the assorted veins that powered the comms. There must be a glitch somewhere. 

                Holdo stood, hands on the table as an image formed in the center of the council table. 

                A weaselly face with squinted eyes and slicked back hair in the serpiente’s usual style formed in red and black polygons. Slitted eyes flit from face to face, taking into account all the various hostile expressions the high council of the avians threw in his direction. Holdo remained standing, but folded her hands upon each other and stood straight. 

                “Good evening, Alula Amilyn Holdo. Am I interrupting?”


	3. The Crown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wish it was a better day that I declare you queen. But our better days have passed. Prepare for the formal ceremony. You will take the Kaiburr in seven days when the moon is at its height. Darker days are coming. We must be ready. For tonight, rest. May the Force be with us”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, hi I'm still alive :') Sorry for taking 9298081019 years. (Also I'm posting this without my beta @salamangkera's knowledge, I'm sorry beb I got excited) 
> 
> There's been minor changes to the previous chapters and I edited the tags because some stuff shifted as I wrote this chap. Thank you for reading! I love you all thank you <3 !

                Rey’s whole body vibrated with the sudden pulse of anger that surged through her from all sides--the energy systems lined on the table picking up the surge in the Force coming from all the council members. It came up to Rey’s hand with a sting that made her lift her palm for a moment. 

                Among the serpiente High Command, General Armitage Hux was one of the few who were hated almost as much as the Emperor himself. He was credited for the creation of the Starkiller, the skyship which turned five major avian cities into ash. It was what made Paige so livid that she headed the first battle she was able to after she barely made out of one of the burning castles. If the slit-eyed demons in their stories were real, they lived in the flesh of Armitage Hux. 

                In times of great uncertainty such as this, they always fell back on avian reserve. The council took an almost collective deep breath. 

                The anger rose and ebbed. 

                In a few breaths,  the avians adjusted themselves to sit as impassively as they had before. General Cypress straightened his sleeves and lifted his chin in a show of slight interest. His black eagle-hawk feathers settled in the haughtiest manner. Another councilman turned to rest his hands on the smooth wood with a small sigh. Another yet released a small exasperated huff. Along the identical wings of the council table, legislators and generals regarded Hux with disinterest. Their attendants barely moved from the stands. 

                The Alula tilted her head as if looking down on an errant chick. 

                The hologram flickered, drenching the rest of them in red light. Hux smiled, his fangs peeking out to rest on his bottom lip. He stood stiffly at attention, his synthetic leather robes casting clean red lines. His cobra hood flared at his neck--yellow scales from what Rey could remember. 

                “General Hux. Good evening. I assume you are here to threaten us”

                “On the contrary, Great Lady. I am here by the grace of our Emperor to offer you a truce” The words sounded like mockery, as what all words coming from Hux seem to be. But there was an edge to his voice that betrayed his dislike for his own Supreme Leader. Rey pressed her hand closer to the table, feeling for the tap in their comms. She ran a hand through the light blue tulle folds of her dress as she leaned forward. The slice was clean and as sharp as the edge of a sword. It was done by someone who _knew_ how their commlinks worked--a traitor among them. The feathers at the back of her neck raised in alarm. 

                “We know that it is a… trying time for your winged kind as you only just lost one of your precious princesses, but we assure you that this truce is the next best thing besides your inevitable surrender. We trust that you obey as it could only be beneficial to your depleted troops to comply with our generous offer. We will send you the details of--”

                Poe yawned and stretched his wings. The man who sat next to him in the stands moved his wings to avoid him.

                Everybody looked to him in relief and slight disgust. He froze with his hand that was halfway around to covering his mouth. He looked to their queen, who was raising one perfect eyebrow at him, a slight smile quirking on her lips.

                “Forgive me, _Great Lady._ Our very secret meeting seemed to be running long, don’t you suppose?”

                “It would not do you well to--” The voice hardly broke through the avians’ bravado. Their slight shake-up calmed by Poe’s timely antics.

                “I do think so, too, Commander Dameron”

                “Is this really General Hux, my Alula? General Hux of the Starkiller Base General Hux? Huh.” Poe dropped his voice into a mocking whisper. A lady with pink flamingo wings chuckled once and fluttered her fan embroidered with bird-of-paradise in holographic threads over her face. Hux’s shoulders tightened around his body and his eyes slitted. Rey wouldn’t put it past him if he started shouting now. Serpiente _are_ quite known for their passionate outbursts. 

                Rey felt a slight spark on her fingertips. 

                Golden eyes stared at her from the dark. Different from the sour acid of Hux’s controlled magic signatures. No, it was deeper, more electric, more violent. A deep, controlled chaos. Magic bursting from the seams. A familiar intake of breath. She wrenched her hand from the table. 

                 “Quiet now, Commander. It would be a great disrespect of General Hux if we do not take his threats seriously. And are we not of this council avians of great honour and proper manner? Now hush and let the poor General continue”

                “Forgive me, Great Lady”

                “I trust that you take this offer seriously as this might decide your--” 

                “General Hux, if you may send us the details of your proposed truce? We will send you a reply on your own doorstep as soon as it is convenient. Thank you for your time. Good night. Rest well.” She waved her hand dismissively and then the sound of several metal pipes bursting shook the table, severing several lines of wiring that ran under. The image of General Hux fractured and his eyes almost comically large as he disappeared. 

                Holdo gazed at them as if in thought, and then sat as if her magic wasn’t burning through the room. The green hues of the auroras danced in her eyes in her fury. 

                “Quite a show-off, that one. Anyway, the evening has run long. We will deliberate on _new developments_ tomorrow. Have a good night. You all are dismissed” 

                “Alula! Don’t you think we should be talking about this now?” Poe turned sharply towards the queen. 

                “I have given you my orders, Commander” Holdo stood and the others followed suit, even though they kept their eyes trained at Poe.  

                “So the rest of us don’t get to hear--” Holdo’s eyes burn a hole through him, and he stops speaking. Poe purses his lips and pulls his hands back from where they were on the table. He lowers his eyes, still seething. But he nods in assent. 

                “Forgive me, Great Lady” Holdo simply shifts in a slight nod and then starts walking away.

                “My Generals. If you may walk with me” 

                 Rey huddles to her feet to follow in her shadow. The Generals do so, too. Rose moves from her seat on the stands where the council’s attendants sit in wait. She almost steps on her bronze skirts as she looks upon Rey in alarm. She adjusted herself and walked with her, a few steps behind the iridescent ivory train of Holdo’s court dress. She passed a few seconds staring at the embroidered blooming poppies, Queen’s Heart and ecorbian orange and blue flowers. The fairy bluebirds on her skirts landed on the embroidered branches and settled their heads on their wings, asleep. 

                Rey felt the week’s exhaustion deep in her bones. 

                The Alula’s raven attendant walked somewhere near, taking note of her words in her holopad in a rapid flurry of movement. The tapping of Kaydel’s fingers against the panel of glass kept her awake. 

                “I want a complete sweep of the whole castle. Shift to the new channels before the night is over. Burn the previous ones. Our commlinks are to be shuffled twice more each day. I want new comm system proposals sent to me in three days. Send for our engineers about the unfortunate incident in the council room table. I don’t want this getting out of hand, and I entrust this upon you” The generals murmured and nodded. And then, “Rey”

                “Yes, mother?” Rey’s skin prickled at the sudden attention, and she looked at the pale violet of Holdo’s hair. She did not turn as she kept walking. Some of the generals stole glances, but most of them waited for the queen to speak. 

                “Who was the slicer?” So she noticed. Then again, she never missed anything. 

                “Others maintained the line, but it was the Emperor himself. I _felt_ him.”

 _You need a teacher_. His voice, echoing in her ear as sparks flew from his flickering blade. Rey was no stranger to feeling that she _had_ to run, but at that moment she didn’t know _where to_. She didn’t even understand half of what he had been saying. 

_I can feel it too._

                 She cut his face and then ran, the groaning descent of Starkiller from the sky not far behind. 

                Nobody missed a step, but Rey felt fear rumbling in the Force. She lifted her wings from where they started dragging on the floor and smoothed down her tail feathers. She was the only heir to the Kaiburr now, and she must look the part. She breathed the cool air to settle herself, imagined the Force flowing like a calm river. She kicked at the panels of her skirt as she tried to keep up with the rest of them. 

                “I see” Holdo turned right on a corner. Leading them to a hallway with an open balcony. She was taking the scenic route before the stairwell that led to her floor. 

                The stars hung low. The polished marble of the Eyrie glimmered like seawater in the light of the moon. As the snows melted, the scent of the sea from the shifting winds grew stronger. The trees swayed in the light breeze. They were growing back their leaves--shaking off the grip of winter. If Rey strained her eyes, sometimes she imagines that she could see the sands of Jakku on the horizon, even if it was miles away from the city. 

                Holdo stops walking, folds her hands over themselves and turns. Proud but weary. Her eyes are diamonds set upon granite. 

                “This young emperor is playing this war better than us. Better than I ever have. I feel the darkness creeping in, choking us out. The sun is setting on my reign, and we need new eyes to see. We need a new queen. _Rey--_ ” 

                She stops herself from fisting her skirts. She nods towards her queen. 

                “I wish it was a better day that I declare you queen. But our better days have passed. Prepare for the formal ceremony. You will take the Kaiburr in seven days when the moon is at its height. Darker days are coming. We must be ready. For tonight, rest. May the Force be with us” Holdo passes her a glance, and when they arrive on their floor, they ask their attendants to leave. 

                The queen’s suite was similar to her own, but with a higher ceiling with panels of painted glass above that opened upon the stars. She remembered being a girl, jumping on the cushions with Paige and Rose as they kept their laughter low. The attendants told the queen, but she merely smiled and told them to never do it again. A glimmer in her eyes showed a drizzle of rain upon the pavement. A promise of life.  That night she sang them a song from her homeland, haunting but hopeful. 

                Tonight, Holdo kept the glass dark and the waxing moon provided the only light that filtered through. In the comfort of her own rooms, Holdo lets her wings a fraction of an inch down, walking towards her chaise and setting herself onto it, folding her wings behind her. 

                “Sit beside me, Rey.” She pats the soft leather, in a shade of lavender lighter than her hair. Rey sits behind her and plants her feet on the marble floor, preparing herself for the inevitable. Holdo sighs, glances at her lap before turning back to her. She purses her lips. 

                “You remember the day I explained to you what being an Apprentice meant?” 

                “Yes, Alula”

                Holdo takes off her bracelets, the one on the left bearing a magenta sugilite polished to a perfect cabochon, something from Gatalenta--home of the falcons. Holdo believed it kept her clear of mind, and mindful of herself, her responsibilities. She always wore her bracelets as a pair. She put down the left bracelet on her lap and raised the one on the right. She turned it so that the light of the moon shone on the other crystal’s surface. It showed the sky the same as it was outside, twinkling with a million stars. 

                “Legend has it that back when it was plucked from the stone, at the summit of one of the Juran Mountains, the Kaiburr was red and glowed with a light inside. They took it and discovered its power, and used it to heal. And then they discovered its ability to heighten any kind of magic, and with it they conquered the skies. These are _legends_.” Rey knows this story, every avian does. She knows it before her first moulting. It was a pretty story, and they enjoyed telling it. But the history of the Kaiburr was far too ancient that no historian was sure of its origins beyond hearsay. 

                “ _This_ , we know as truth. No queen holds it for long” Holdo passes the bracelet to her, lets her inspect the stars, recognizing one or two constellations as she shifts it in her hand. “It heightens much more, enables too much. It seeps into the mind and the soul and some queens swear that it has a life of its own, with will as certain as the Force. To me, however,  it _infects_ ” The night sky shifts, the crystal now flickering in firelight and smoke. It showed an ancient volcano, dead, beautiful, a perfect cone on all sides, spewing forth explosive lava and ash so thick it swallowed the whole of the plains below. The Battle of Chyron Belt. 

Holdo walked into the battlefield with a single flight of fifty avian soldiers against a whole field of draconi. Holdo walked out with half her flight and ashes. 

                “ _To me_ , it is a dark pit, echoing anything it touches because it has nothing of itself. Listen to the pit long enough and it starts to whisper” Rey looks through the Kaiburr, and sees five cities burn--swallowed by scarlet flames. She looks up through the eyes of a million avians, watching the fire rain down from above. 

                They start screaming in a single panicked wail that builds up to a ringing in her ears, all saying the same words.

                _Avenge us._

                “As the keeper of our people's greatest power, we must know which of these voices is _ours_ and which are merely echoes of the void. As Apprentices, you and Paige were allowed to train and wield the Kaiburr. You've shown promise no less than your sister, but you must remember the concerns your master and I have previously expressed about your ability to silence the darkness" 

_"Resist it, Rey!"_

_"Rey!"_

_"You went straight to the dark"_

                "I will not fail you again, Alula"

                "You will not. You are not allowed to,  my child. Our duty is to carry our people's burden and to know when to pass on the load. I hear the void drowning out my own voice more often than not. Unfortunately, this is why you are to be queen before you are ready. Swear to me, Rey--my Apprentice, my child--swear to me that you will acknowledge the dangers of this power, your weakness, and your faults, and to know when you are unfit to serve our people any longer" 

                Holdo cradles her right bracelet in her hands, holding it just above her lap. 

                "There will be a crowning ceremony, but starting tonight the Kaiburr is yours."

                Rey falls to her knees, drops her head and raises her wings in offering to expose their roots in the middle of her back,  letting her feathers flatten and stretch until her primaries touched the marble. She holds out her hand, praying for calm and for strength.

                Holdo places her hands--holding the bracelet--in hers.

                "Tonight, you are Queen" 

                Rey feels a rush unlike anything, both cold and hot, burning ice and freezing flame. It starts at her fingertips, like touching a live wire. The smell of ozone, thunderstorm on the horizon. She tastes metal on her tongue. A billion suns dance behind her eyes, planets humming deep, grumbling songs. She hears the wind through the mountains, the spray of the waves in the open ocean. Life and death, birth and rebirth. Energy to matter, matter to energy. The pull of infinite gravities.

                The Force making and remaking itself. 

                "Stand, my Alula"

                Her eyes open and in them, starlight. 


	4. The Bond

                Holdo leaves the bracelet in her hands. It weighs nothing, but its true heaviness settles on her body, weaving through every cell and embeds itself on her every thought. Her mind opens up to a chasm, and she stands on the brink of free fall. 

                "Breathe, Rey."

                She stands on heavy legs. 

                The light of the moon settles behind Holdo, casting over Rey a great shadow. Her head is now a great echoing hall housing a discordant chorus.

                Holdo looks at her as she rose. Her eyes remain blue but darker than they were without the magic of the Crown. The otherworldly shine of her magic is gone, but still, she retains the posture of royalty. She shifts the other bracelet back to her wrists, breathing like she has finally stopped lifting a heaviness on her shoulders. 

                Rey stands before her, a Queen. 

                It was hard to breathe. Her chest aches with the weight upon it. She looks out the window, begging the stars for guidance. 

                "Have we received the message from General Hux yet, mother?"

                Her hands shake as she fastens the bracelet on her wrist. 

                "Yes. Lieutenant Connix already has our prepared reply. If you approve, it will be sent to the serpiente tonight. I have thought to set the meeting place myself, in the neutral groves of the Old Forests. If they use their fastest skyships they will be there in three days. I have also asked for the emperor to come by himself, without his council, and to only include his most essential guards. If he agrees, you will do the same. Rey, I want you to represent me in this meeting."

                "Where will you be?"

                "Here. Preparing for an attack. I would not put it past the serpiente to talk of peace as they sharpen their swords, because we will be doing the same." 

                "Understood. Then I accept." Holdo nods, a rare smile on her lips. The moonlight smooths over the lines on her face, the years that she devoted her life to the safety of their people. Rey prays that she would be able to do the same. 

                "The day before you came to us, the Kaiburr whispered to me of great eagle wings. It said that you would carry us to a new age, the goddess in her most powerful. It had been a trying month, and you had given me hope. In you and Paige I saw the future."

                "Paige would have been a wonderful Queen. I wish--"

                "Maybe. But now my only hope for her is peace. She would not want us to mourn. It does not do us well to dwell on our sorrows. Let her go, Rey. Your sister is free of this war, let her sleep."

                "How do you do it, Alula? How do you carry all this without breaking?" Holdo thought for several moments. Rey felt her emotions like gentle waves on a shore, gentle caresses, carefully controlled. She sighs. 

                "I was not as young as you when they brought me to the Keep. The queen before me had kept our borders quiet while the draconi fought with themselves. She had avoided the madness by not leaning on the Crown's power for a long time. But near the end of her reign, the serpiente had shaped their kingdoms into efficient machines, soldiers with no thought but obedience. We were not prepared. Peace had made our queen gentle. I inherited the Crown the day that she fell on the battlefield. I was in the council room when it happened. We launched an attack the morning after."

                "There is only one way through this, my child. And it is to keep moving forward."

…

                She visited Finn the next morning. They were moving the most recent refugees to the ground levels of the castle. He had to stay for a while longer due to his injuries. Rey was visiting to invite him to the castle. It hadn’t been easy and there had been much to fix, but they’ve established housing for much of those from the camps. Away from the battlefields, the refugees were quick to stand, and soon there were blossoming communities in the borders. The marketplaces have never been so full. Rey takes comfort in spending time with them, often finding herself there when she gets lost in her grief. It was light in the dark. 

                “It’s alright, no really--” 

                Finn tried to stand when she opened the flap to the tent where he was. A blonde sparrow child was trying to climb onto his lap, asking him to play with them. The tired mother was trying to convince the child that let the poor man rest because he was probably tired, and Finn had already played with them for an hour. 

                The sparrows looked up, saw Rey and bowed their heads. 

                “Apprentice. You honor us.”

                “Good morning?”

                “Lana, my Lady. This is my daughter, Kae. Kae, please get off Finn, he’s hurt-- I’m sorry about this, I’ve been trying to--” 

                “It’s no matter. Please be comfortable. I’m only here to make sure you’re alright”

                “Thank you, Lady Rey. For letting us stay in the castle. Our fields were--” Lana broke off, scooped her child up in her arms and looked like she was about to cry. As if sensing her mother’s sadness, Kae buried her face in her neck and tightened her arms around her mother. Rey’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth. 

                “It’s the least we could do. I’m sorry.”

                “I’m going to let Kae run around for a while, then. So she can shave off some of her energy. Thank you again for visiting us, Lady Rey.” She started to walk away, then she stopped in front of her, placed her hand on her arm and then, “You give us hope.”

                She smiled at her. A real, full smile. Rey couldn’t help but smile in return. 

                “Thank you”

                She disappears out the canvas flaps. 

                “Lady Rey”

                “Rey is enough. You’re not exactly an avian subject, aren’t you? This is Rose, my friend. We’re here to ask how you’re settling” Rey sat on the bed that the Lana just left, the one closest to Finn’s. Rose followed, but she sat on a chair somewhere near, eyeing Finn with a suspicion that she passed off as subtle interest. 

                “How are you?”

                “Doing better. I can barely feel the poison. You avians are really good with your antidotes. Well you’d have to be, right? You’re at war with venom. Anyway. Thank you, _Rey_. You saved my life in that forest. How do I repay you?”

                “You don’t need to, Finn. Live well. That’s all we ask.” She smiled at him.  “There are a few serpiente in the castle, but they live together with the other avians. Would you be comfortable staying with them?” 

                “I’d do anything to get away from the First Order” He breathes it out in a defeated, hateful sigh. 

                “Why did you run?” Rose spoke from her corner, walking to stand in front of him. 

                “Do you really need to ask me that? The things they order us to do-- we can’t-- we can’t do that. And even you avians know that if an Ecdys can’t obey orders they’re dead.”

                “We?”, Rey asked. Rose shot her a look. Her heart started to pound. 

                “There were nine of us who ran” 

                They allow Finn his quiet. 

                “I’d give you anything I could to help, Rey. Anything to stop them”

                “Well you have to get well first, don’t you?”

                “We might just hold you up to that promise, Finn” Rose’s lips upturned ever so slightly. 

...

 _She was running through a forest, the snow falling softly to the ground._ It was quiet except for the sound of her labored breathing. She had been captured, tied down under Kylo Ren himself. He had not been Emperor, not yet. He had removed his helmet, threatened her, killed his father and then chased her through the woods. 

_“I feel it too”_

                She felt his heartbeat in her chest, the hum of the Force through his veins. Feeling him was like stepping in the middle of a lightning storm. The very air was electric. His magic was barely contained inside him, a dark slithering cloud that promised violence and utter ruin--and she didn’t know why being there with him had made her feel so powerful. She had been tied down but she had never felt so free. When she took control of him, it was flying above the clouds, the sky winds in her lungs. 

                She hates him.

                Her feet slow until she’s standing still. She could feel him. He’s standing from somewhere she could not see. He slid on his feet in a way that would be impossible in the snow-covered ground. His eyes found hers immediately. His jaw works. It draws her to his lips. 

 _Soft_ , she thinks. 

                This dream is confusing her. 

_“Rey?”_

                His voice was echoing in her ears. She turned, the lightsaber in her hand she remembers was there the day they met was gone. No, now it was only her, the dark trees and him. She folded her wings in front of her in defense.

_“Are you doing this? No. The effort would kill you”_

                He looked around, his golden eyes rounding. What was he talking about? 

_“Can you see my surroundings?”_

                And because this was _her_ dream, _“You’re going to pay for all you’ve done. I will avenge my sister.”_

_“I can’t see yours. Just you.”_

                The scene shifted, and now they were on an island that was both familiar and not. She heard the rumbling of the waves, the spray of the ocean as it broke over the rocks. There was a storm rolling in. It was already drizzling. Rey held her palm up to catch the drops, looking up and smiling until she remembered there was someone else with her. 

_“Why is the Force connecting us, you and I?”_

                He moves forward. Rey holds her ground, raises her wings. 

                _“Murderous snake. You’ve lost. I will be Queen. And I’m going to come for you.”_

_“You will? Ah, you will. You have that look in your eyes, from the forest. When you called me a monster”_

_“You are a monster”_

                He steps forward. His golden eyes slitted and the gleaming black cobra scales on his neck fluttering. 

_“Yes I am”_

_..._

                They arrive at the Old Forests before the serpiente. 

                The first hours had been busy, tense. But as soon as the tents were up and the food was served, everyone had calmed enough to wait without watching the clouds for the sleek black skyships of the First Order. 

                Rey tightens her hands on her skirts so she would stop fidgeting with her hair. Rose had already told her off on it too many times that she excused herself for a walk alone. Holdo insisted that she allow her to braid her hair before she left. 

                _“A dear friend taught me this. I hope I do it well enough to make her happy.”_

                Rey walked a bit further into the woods, breathing hard. 

                Something passed by in the corner of her eye. 

                A glowing faintly in the distance. Squinting, she recognizes it as a small butterfly. The top of its wings was ebony, but on the upstroke, she saw that the underside was ivory. 

 _“Lady Rey”_ Maz Kanata’s voice had a slight drawl that betrayed her age, but the Guardian’s eyes were bright and piercing. Her forehead creases, as if she knew exactly what Rey had seen. 

                The Old Forests were a sanctuary, a mysterious neutral ground untouched by the war. The trees here have witnessed no bloodshed, as almost all races believe that these groves were holy in some way or another. It was forbidden to commit violence on the groves. As such, it was a common meeting place for conventions and treaties. Or attempts at them. 

                Maz Kanata was the third Guardian that history remembers. If there were others, there had been no written history yet to remember them by, and the Guardians had been as silent about their stories as the trees that stood witness to time. 

                The forest seemed to follow Maz when she moved. The roots reached out for her boots, the grass swayed as she passed by. Her stone and metal bracelets clinked together in her wrists. She wore a long necklace of seeds of different shape and size, bound and strung together--the oldest seeds in existence and the mark of her stewardship over these lands.  

                “Guardian” Rey inclines her head down in respect. Maz shakes her head and chuckles. 

                “None of that avian silliness, Alula. Walk with me” 

                “I’m not--”

                “Not yet Alula? To you, maybe. Time moves differently for the forest, you see. But you will be Queen soon in your time, won’t you? To us the future, the past, all in the present. So to me, you are queen.” Maz led her to the clearing where she was to meet the Emperor. In the middle of the meadow, flanked by two ancient uneti trees, a stump aged to a gray stone by time. If Maz was ancient, this meeting table was even so. Rey runs her hand over the smooth surface, the rings still visible though faint. 

                “You came here to seek peace?”

                “Yes”

                “Strange isn’t it, to search for something you have never seen. Stranger yet, to not find something you already have. Don't fret, little queen. All will come in time” Rey nodded in respect, though she did not understand. 

                Maz touches the table, reverent. She looks up at Rey, looks as deep as the threads of the Force that make up her existence. She could feel herself unraveling, her life laid bare in front of the Guardian. 

                “I am old, Lady Rey. But I know your eyes. When you live long enough as I have, you see the same eyes in different people. You have the eyes of a queen.” 

                “I have to concede, Guardian. I don’t follow”

                “I didn’t expect you to, dear Rey. These are things an old woman whispers to herself. Today you will meet your destiny. Have faith, little queen. You already look the part.”

                Poe clears his throat, nervous in the presence of Maz Kanata, and they turn towards him. 

                “The Emperor is here” 


	5. the emperor and his dark crown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sneakily posts this without my beta*  
> hi sorry it took 84 years  
> hope you like it?

                The Emperor lets his ship cruise downwards, barely glancing at his console to balance the correct cocktail of airspeed, pitch attitude, and power his craft needed to avoid the millennia-old trees of the OId Forest. He breathes out harshly, and he feels the hot moisture of his breath in the crowding enclosure of his mask beading on his upper lip. He could feel her. His grip tightens on the controls, and he feels the Silencer groan from the weight of his magic. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, gathering the wailing threads of the Force that slipped from his control. Old words echo in his head, words of guidance and calm.  _ Control yourself, Kylo Ren. Your rage blurs your senses. You are of no use to me blind.  _

 

                He tightens his hold and the threads turn sharp, as it does when he tries to tamper it down in violence. His magic bleeds. As it usually does. Of this, Snoke was proud of. If his purpose was to bear the pain, then he should be glad that it pleases his master. The mark on his shoulder, his mark for earning Snoke’s guidance, long faded but its magic burrowing deeper in time, stings. 

 

                The landing gear engages, and the Silencer lands with barely a flutter on the surrounding trees. He sets out a wide net of magic, feeling for the avians that were already settled in the meadow. It seems they’ve upheld their end of the bargain. Only the necessary royal guard was there, and he could not feel the presence of their queen. The Alula must have been in their castle, manning the gates. Prepared, but not necessary. He would not bring them to their downfall today.

 

                The door seal hisses, and he gets off his ship lazily, preparing himself for the cooling burn of her magic. Her Force signature glows in the back of his mind, controlled like his, but the threads weaved so artfully inside her instead of bursting at the seams. Avian magic is less instinctive, more rule-bound, but their Apprentice takes their love of control to greater heights. Not even their queen has this amount of magic weaved inside her like a security blanket. Kylo has felt the formidable thickness of her armor during battle too many times and is still surprised when he can’t get through to her each time. Her magic spikes as she felt him in return. 

 

                The rest of his entourage disembark from their crafts. Using his command shuttle would be the practical choice, the choice his master suggested. But, he preferred to start this meeting with a calm, open mind. Something that he could not achieve in the presence of his knights, with the viscous tendrils of their doubt and disdain cloying the walls of the ship and General Hux breathing down his neck. The avians have specifically requested just him, but Snoke expressed his doubts that he would be clear of mind when dealing with the scavenger girl, and his master is wise--so the weasel has come with him. 

 

                He walks through the trees that surrounded the clearing, his guard falling in step behind him. He can feel the ancient magic press against him, acknowledging their presence and gauging them as if it was sentient. Kylo has studied these trees, in a time he thought he forgot, he has pressed his hands on the aged bark and the swirls that the Force itself etched on the wood, climbed the length of their colossal trunks by focusing magic on his hands and feet, meditated under the shade of its leaves, discovering not peace nor belonging, but a need for guidance that he could not have achieved if he stayed under the tutelage of his uncle. Still, he regards the trees with respect. They have been in this world longer than him and he is certain that they would last ages beyond his death, his presence a mere speck to them in the grandeur of time. His mind, lulled by the safety of the trees, recognized the thought that not even his master was eternal, though Snoke himself believed otherwise. He severs the thought before it could take hold. He would accept his punishment for this foolishness later. 

 

                The avians have already taken their place behind their now sole Apprentice, standing primly in front of one of the seats on the table. The aged bark dwarfs her, and she looked small even with her considerably large wings slightly raised behind her. She is radiant in the light airiness of the embroidered golden tulle that she wore over ivory silk, fairy bluebirds fluttering their wings with craftsmanship infused with the Force. Half a chest plate is fastened to her front, satiny white gold that looked like it offered no protection, but by the feel of it was strengthened with spells that made it more impenetrable than the hull of his ship. Her eyes flit over his body in return. He had not changed from his usual ebony black armor when he visits the battlefields, all infused with the Force in a way that was reverse-engineered from a common avian skyship that could take more blasts than any of theirs combined. He hadn’t even taken off his mask. It seemed that they both came expecting a fight. When it comes to them, it almost always does. She turns her head slightly as she gauges him. 

 

                His blood runs cold. 

 

                The hair framing her face was swept up in twisting coils, and the style of those braids is  _ serpiente _ . It was specifically  _ Alderaanian _ , an age-old tradition from his mother’s homeland that was almost a language in and of itself. Those braids always meant something, and hers were saying… Did she know? 

 

                Doubt seeps in. 

 

                Her magic reaches out for him and though he was doubtful, he was helpless not to hold out his in return. He feels a crackling as the Force lets them meet in the middle, in sparks only the two of them felt, the same electricity as all the times they met before. But now she was reaching out first. 

 

_                 What is this, Apprentice?  _

 

                The connection lets them see each other’s intentions and thoughts more clearly, on her side its purpose was to see all the cards in his hands, on his he simply just likes feeling her. When the thought passes on to her it makes her eyes angry, but her cheeks red. They sit without taking their gaze off of each other, and everyone else stands at attention. Two of his knights go around the table, bringing a box. A customary gift was usually given by serpiente royalty when they receive guests, either priceless jewels or precious metal--worthless baubles to the owners of all the most productive mining veins in this continent, but still pretty and expensive. Since this was a meeting of peace, or what close to it he could offer, he’d given her a blade. They have fought enough times that he could estimate the length and the weight of a blade that would be perfect for her size and reach. The hilt was embellished but simple enough for avian sensibilities, and though it was mostly symbolic, she could still use it in battle. Ruby flowers with sunset opals in the shape of red nightbloomers because it reminded him of the furious glint in her eyes, reflected from the crackling, heated glow of his lightsaber, poisonous millaflowers as a sign of handing over his trust in her hands, and a pair of plom blooms at the pommel. Hope. She glances at the blade with curiosity, then she closes the lid of the box with one graceful movement. She sends his knights away with a glance. They tiptoe their way back to his side. 

 

                “You’re  _ late _ , Emperor.” If it had been the Alula Amilyn Holdo or her favorite daughter, they would have said something along the lines of  _ ‘Very nice of you to join us’ _ , or something else that was mockingly formal. But no, the Apprentice Rey has no time for stiff, flowery, double-meaning greetings or even the pompous gift-giving previous queens of theirs indulged previous monarchs of his. “Thank you for the sword. It is beautiful. I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you but words of peace.”

 

                “Not even a single stalk of tulip, Apprentice? I’m sure the great lady would not send you here with nothing.” Being at war with the avians is all he knew, all he’d ever done. But he would never get used to their expressionless faces and detached propriety, no matter how many soulless eyes he sees looking up at the sky for the last time, dead eyes with more life than they had when they were alive. 

 

                The princess’s were so unlike her people’s. Maybe because she was found from nowhere, with no one to teach her their ways, or because she just burns as bright as her magic. He relished in taunting her, every raised eyebrow, fluttered feather and flushed cheek a victory stoking the pulse his chest. 

 

                “She has sent you her daughter, Emperor. Weeks after you’ve killed the other. Let us not forget that we are at war. Remember, this was a meeting that you arranged, and something we only agreed to entertain. Say your purpose, Kylo Ren. The longer you delay, the sharper my army’s talons will be.” 

 

                “Not your army,  _ alwina _ . You are not yet queen” 

 

_                 Little princess, _ it is unfortunate that we are here and you hate me so. 

 

                “Am I not? Haven’t you made me Queen by killing my sister?” He wanted to say that he did not, that he wasn't even present when the decision was made, too broken by the death of his father at his own hands to care about five avian cities burning. But he would seem weak, evidently only a pawn in the games that his master liked to play, a child wearing a crown he did nothing to earn. So he dusts his hands in the ashes of Paige Tico, lets Rey of Jakku have her rage on him. 

 

                "Then am I also allowed to give you a list of all the ecdys that your soldiers have killed? Or do they not count because to you they are not human?" 

 

                Her voice turns cold. 

 

                "They are soldiers at war. Do not wet my hands in the blood you have spilled, Kylo Ren. You send them to us after you've emptied their heads and you've filled their chests with hollow shadows. We cannot kill what is already dead."

 

                "Then why do you keep FN-2187 prisoner?" She is taken aback by his words, eyes narrowing in the same moment she realizes the purpose of this meeting. The feathers at the tops of her wings rise, and soon enough her guard picks up on her fury. The black-haired woman next to her, the  _ true _ sister, has never let her out of her angry glare, but now she is absolutely livid. The attendant steps forward but is stopped by a raised hand. 

 

                "You want Finn back?" A bitter laugh. "Because your stormtroopers can finally see there is hope? That there is something beyond choosing death as freedom?"

 

                "You've given him a name. Like a pet. So much for the high ground, Apprentice." The high grating voice came from his side. Hux has stepped forward without his permission. The black-haired lady,  _ Rose _ , palmed the hilt of a small dagger at her hip. Kylo felt a calming wave of magic hit him squarely in the chest. Strange, to feel calm so rapidly after anger has risen in him. Everyone’s hands leave the handles of their weapons, focused on the way she has seized all their disagreement in her dainty fingers. 

 

                "Have you been permitted to speak, General Hux?" It was said so softly, but chillingly cold. If Kylo had been a lesser man, he wouldn’t be able to feel the way his chest jumped at her threat, wouldn’t be able to appreciate the fury in her face, the fluttery shaking of the feathers at her neck. She was so beautiful in her rage. 

 

                Hux turned as red as his hair, the scales at the back of his neck trembling. In Rey of Jakku's eyes, glowing hot coals. He was too distracted by her hair that he hadn't noticed her  _ eyes _ . How they shift and bleed, a pool of water under different skies. Now he knew how she made even Hux swallow his words. 

 

                The Kaiburr was truly a thing of awe, and with her skill, it would be a thing of fear. She already held the skies in her hands, the Crown more relevant than the title. She was already queen. 

 

                "You will not interfere twice, General Hux.” He did not turn, only looking at her as she grips the fold of her skirts underneath the table with one hand, an anxious tic. He felt the way Hux’s barely there Force signature shake, smell the way his blood reeked of fear and indignation, hear the trembling of his scales.  Hux lifted his chin in a last attempt, not in bravery but more of a trained response to not show fear in case he would be punished for cowardice. He nods once, then steps back and disappears behind him. Rey does not let go of his reins. 

 

                “Let us put aside our hostilities long enough so that we can have one decent conversation. We are being derailed, Lady Rey. I am here to offer you an agreement. Your prisoner, for D’Qar. Give us the traitor and you would have your foothold in the west. More than enough of a bargain, don’t you think?" Though his guards were all surprised, they did not show any outward apprehension, only the slight alarm that bled through the Force as they all turned very slightly toward him, watching his mask as he offers much more than what Snoke allowed him. Hux hissed softly from behind but smartly kept his mouth shut. If he breathed the wrong way as Kylo waited for her decision he wouldn’t bother with his lightsaber, his magic would shred him into paper strips. 

 

                Her face had not changed, but the crystal nestled on the silver on her wrist turned dark, flowing lava cracked and steaming, breathing out in heat and boiling from the depths. And so were her eyes. Everyone looks to her, rising feathers, fluttering scales. “You will give us D’Qar out of fear of one man who has broken free of your shackles and now proudly calls himself by his own name? How you fear the shadows you cast yourself, Kylo Ren.” She was shaking now. She stands. “I will not give up a friend for a mountain, even if it’s one of the holiest places for my people. They may hate me, but they will never hate you less. If this is all you can offer, then I kindly refuse. We are leaving.”

 

                Multiple voices echoed, angry hissing from behind him and supportive assent on her side. He rises too, unaware of what to do but knowing that the situation has slipped from his grasp. He cannot return empty-handed. In his desperation, “May we talk alone?”. The voices got louder, like his head in Snoke’s chamber each time he presents another failure. 

 

                Her Force signature grows barbs that hurt to feel as she put up walls of suspicion and distrust--a familiar pain he was accustomed to as she continues to mistake their shared dreams for nightmares, not being able to sleep well as she screams at him for everything he’s done, but he was too desperate for her company that he would never willingly tell her the truth. It was better to feel her anger, feel anything, rather than her indifference. She raises her hand, gestures toward the trees. 

 

                “Lead the way, Emperor” 

 

                Their retinues attempt to follow. 

 

                “Haven’t we made ourselves clear?” She turns to the leader of her guards. “I trust that this table would be intact when we return. Do not disrespect the Guardian by shedding blood on this grass. Walk, Emperor.” Surprisingly, the thrill of the angry order shoots up his spine and makes his blood flow. She feels it, looking towards the trees as she flusters, hiding her furious blush by raising her wings above her ears. His ears burn in return, but hopefully his mask hides this. She hides her bracelet and the red orchids blooming inside. They walk side by side and disappear into the forest. 

 

                He should be offering her less, bargaining with the sly knowledge instilled in him by his mother since he was a child, using tricks taught to him since birth to never be dealt a losing hand. His mind, blessedly empty, only supplies,

 

_                 “You look beautiful”  _

 

                She stops walking, blinking rapidly with a deeper blush painting her cheeks. 

 

                “Thank you. You look, well you look-- large-- imposing, I mean. I can’t really see you, with the mask. But you've achieved your goal. You look like a frightening beast.” She clears her throat. “We must focus on the task at hand.”

 

                “Do you want me to take it off?” 

 

                “You didn’t ask at all last time.” What a great introduction, the one they had. Rey as his prisoner but her still emerging the victor of that encounter, with her whole body in chains. He takes his mask off, runs a hand through his flattened hair. She takes him in like she’d been waiting for it the entire time. 

 

                “You were tied down. I didn’t need to worry about your hands”

 

                “How are you so sure that you don’t need to worry about them, now?”

 

                “Your morals won’t allow you to draw any blood here. You are much too respectful of the old ways. It is your greatest flaw, clinging to the past.”

 

                “Is burning everything down much better? And no, the only blood forbidden here are those that were drawn from violence. There are other rituals here that involve blood.” She said it so offhandedly, but she swallowed when she realized what she said. He  _ knows _ those rituals too.

 

                “Interested in participating in them, Apprentice? If you need a teacher...” A small intake of breath through parted lips, exhaustion or something else he did not know. 

 

                “I thought you had no use for the old ways?” It was said so breathily. She lifts her skirts as they pass a particularly twisted patch of roots. He offers her his hand and she takes it as they step over it. Her hand, so small that it could fit so perfectly in his palm. 

 

                “How do you break the sacred rules if you don’t know them?”

 

                “Maybe I should teach you, instead. Since you have no respect for ancient magic?”

 

                “I respect the ancient magic. I just don’t agree with it.”

 

                “Not everything can grow from ashes, Kylo Ren. Sometimes burning a forest just kills it.” He knows this intimately, pays for it every day of his life. But it is the only way he knows. 

 

                In her dreams, he learned that magic was the only thing she clung to when the false safety of the desert was ripped from her, that her nights were comforted by the thought that the Force had something in store of her, that someone out there was waiting. No wonder she holds the ancient magic so close to her heart. Maybe he should let her teach him, maybe they could teach each other. 

 

                They’ve stopped at a riverbank, watching the water lazily push through the rocks. Their minds were quiet, save for the sound of the bubbling stream and their breaths. She looks toward him, her eyes hers for the first time, soft in that warm chocolate that he remembers only in his dreams. The sunlight turns her face golden. There is an unbearable itch in his fingers to touch her freckled cheeks.

 

                “I’m sorry, but I will never give you Finn. He is my friend and he trusted me with his safety. Everyone seeking it from me is welcome to it.” _Am I?_ _Will you shelter me?_

 

                “Surely you won’t believe it, but I’m also tired of fighting.” 

 

                “I believe it.” His gaze skips from the water into hers. The warmth of her seeps in and comforts him in a way that he hadn’t felt in a long time. She continues, “I know that we did not choose the lives we were born into. We were born into such unhappiness. As a child, I’ve never let myself wish a lot of things because I know those hopes are selfish things to believe in when I’ve already been given more than most, but I still have this wish that I was not at war with you.”

 

                “I wish I was not at war with you, too.” 

 

                After that was a long moment of quiet. They had no thoughts, nothing of relevant form, only a long feeling of loneliness. It echoes around them, a silent spectre that craves touch as much as it shies away. 

 

                “My people are with me. I carry them in my heart. I think I am happy, now that I can fight for them, now that I am queen.” A single shimmering tear, falling in the same place she had cut her wound into him. “But I’ve never felt so alone.” The great lady Rey, who feels too much but is sealed so tight, in tears in front of him. Something in him cracks and he steps forward. 

 

                “You’re not alone.” She looks at him.

 

                “Neither are you.” 

 

                The Force hums, waits. There is a thought they are forming together. They know what must be done. He can hear them whispering it to each other.

                “What are you willing to do for peace, Kylo Ren?”

 

                “Anything.”

 

                “I would do  _ everything  _ for my people. Even--”

 

                “Would you marry me for your people, for peace, Rey of Jakku?”

 

                He had said it so carelessly. If he expected that the Force would shine so brightly between them as much as it did, he would have said it with more thought. Her hair was already drawn up like a bride’s. He had always carried his mother’s ring with him, and somehow he knew that it would fit perfectly. His hand was already making its way towards hers. Hers was, too. 

 

                “Would you marry me, Kylo Ren?” In her eyes, sunlight through the clouds. In his ears, the sound of her heart. 

 

                “For peace.” She takes his hand. Her touch is electric. Her touch is starlight. 

 

                “For peace.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *nightbloomers - those flowers that Rey kept in her AT-AT from TFA :'(  
> *millaflowers - from SW lore, but here they are also often in bridal crowns in serpiente tradition, handing over the poison meant that you trust your partner with your life  
> *alwina - 'little princess', very self-indulgent word derived from the name of my fav characters in one local fantasy series about avians from our country, Alwina (whose name is also from the Filipino word 'lawin' meaning 'hawk'  
> *ecdys - came from 'ecdysis', the term for snakes shedding their skin, which is how disposable the stormtroopers are to whoever holds them. It also means 'getting out'


	6. the dream, past and future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this took approximately 193132793 years 😅
> 
> Thank you to my beautiful beta [ @jovenlovebot ](https://twitter.com/jovenlovebot)

                They felt a shattering in the Force before they heard the scream, a wounded fury so intense that the leaves on the trees shook and the brook's smooth surface rippled before it settled once more on the rocks. Kylo Ren's ungloved hand closes over hers, and he places his body between her and the sound, unknowingly shielding her. The ebony scales on the back of his neck, peeking behind his ears and sticking out of his thick hair, flutter. It fascinated her, that she was hearing it right now, this sign of serpiente at attack, not at her but for her. She squeezes his hand once in reassurance because he seemed to need it and her heart had always bled for him, before letting go.

 

                "Our time is up, Emperor. Let's go and see which of our attendants are still alive." She pats him on the arm once, and the warmth of her hand and the easiness of her touch surprises him. She was so close that he feels the edge of her wing as she passes.  As a draconi, reptilian with blood so cold that they needed artificial warmth built into their clothes, he was so used to touch that it took him a while to realize that her people don't touch even in deepest grief. 

 

                " _ Rey. _ " He didn't know why he called for her, he had no reason but the want to have her name in his mouth. Or maybe because her wings have curled over her shoulders, fear of what she had just done or fear of what is building inside her? Rey looked back at him, eyes a cloudy gray sky. He could taste her confusion in his tongue. 

 

                "Don't be afraid. I feel it too." His voice, so soft even to his own ears. She nods, the acrid tang lessening, shifting to her usual delectable light fragrance. He breathes deep, trying to wash away the bitterness with the taste of rain and mountain winds. They walk side by side. 

  
  


                "What happens now? Our people will not take this news lightly. A… union such as this has not been attempted before and I can see why. I trust you as far as I can throw you, Kylo Ren, but I know that you truly want peace for your people. The avians, and I know your people, too, will feel betrayed. There will be pain. I won't be surprised if there will be skirmishes we can't prevent. This war has gone on so long that it is all we know." She sighed. "What do you plan on doing on your side? So that I can forewarn my Alula with your words in mind."

 

                "My mas— There will be consequences. Resistance will be inevitable. Especially for news such as this. I need to inform my council, but they cannot overrule my decision. I will need to deal with my generals. After that, I order the stand down. However, you will need to appear in Mustafar. My people need to see you."

 

                "And you will need to come with me to the Keep. They need to see you, too. I will be Alula in two weeks, but as you already noticed I technically am Queen. I already wear the crown. Holdo will not be able to challenge my decision as my choice of husband is beyond her. And I am her only heir. I only hope that she trusts me enough to honor my decision. The council  _ will  _ disapprove, but likewise, they cannot prevent me from marrying you. I'll do my best to prevent civil war. We will be balancing on a knife-edge until we are wed. Even beyond that.”

 

                She stops walking, eyes ablaze. 

 

                “But I will trust you, Kylo Ren. Do not betray me. Because if you do, this will be the last time that I do.”

 

                “As long as you don’t threaten me or my reign, then you may trust me, Apprentice. And I will trust you as long as you do.”

 

                She nodded. 

 

                The wind through the trees carries the sound of celebration. The rustling of leaves like a coliseum full of echoing applause. He feels like his future is weaved on the braids on the back of her head, written on the dainty column of her neck. Their magic shift and blend, humming in the same frequency on the surface of their skins, rumbling deep down to the hollows of their bones. They arrive in the clearing only after a quarter of an hour, feeling like a lifetime has passed between them. Still, in his fear, he places his mask over his face, puts on his glove. 

 

                There is nothing on Rey's face that betrayed any of her disappointment that he felt in their strange connection. 

 

                They step into the meadow, bewildered. 

 

                General Hux was on his back on the grass, with little Rose pinning him down, her electric blade pressed on his neck. Poe was trying to intervene, but electricity sizzled in arcs around the struggling pair that no one could get close. 

 

                "What do you have now that you've lost the Hosnian cities? You have no weapons, your best soldiers are dead! Your princess is dead! You have nothing but time and feeble distractions. Your queen is begging for scraps. We will give you no quarter." The last word came out as a wheeze because Rose has pressed the blunt edge of her blade to his windpipe, effectively cutting off his breath. Her wings, dark as night and spread and curved like the angel of death's, casting a shadow over Hux that his face disappeared in the shade. 

 

                "All this coming from a man who is lord of nothing, scheming behind the curtains of the king you want dead but lacking the spine to do so. I  _ know  _ you were the one who gave the order, snake. Do you know how I know? Because the last words my sister said to me was your name and the  _ 'the red sky _ '. You were in the middle of negotiations, General. I told her that your absence was to be her death, and I begged her to run. But she trusted you. My sister, a fool who trusted  _ you. _ I have not forgotten, General Hux. Tread carefully. Crows of the Hays Minor do not forget." She lifts herself, hands still holding the blade to Hux’s throat, dark wings spreading even more that she looked like she was about to take flight with Hux in her talons, intending to drop him from above and crack him like an egg. "I am not allowed blood. But I am allowed pain." 

 

                A bolt of electricity, cruel as lightning descending from the sky, arches from the small blade and slams itself into Hux. He spasms, engulfed in light, screams for several long moments. Everyone stands still, allowing Rose her vengeance--since everyone present passionately hated Hux. They stare as he lays motionless, no one bothering to check for a pulse, not caring if he ends up dead, for the world would probably better off without his blind thirst polluting the world as if his vengeance would pay for his lost innocence or would make the memory of his father less poisonous. He twitches, to everyone's dismay. When he comes to, steaming and choking and wordless for once, Rose has already walked back to the avian's side, with Poe subtly staring in fear and awe. Hux picks himself up from the grass, fingers grasping for anything with purchase. If it was not rooted to the soil, the grass would flee from his fingers. Kylo walks towards him, just so that his heavy boots missed crushing Hux's hands by a single inch. 

 

                "Are you done?" Hux clears his throat several times, but no voice comes. 

 

                "Forgive me, Emperor, for this misconduct against your  _ attendant _ . I will accept any punishment for this disgrace to my Lady." Her knees were bent slightly, arms out with her wings together and up in offering, but her head was not bowed down. 

 

                She was proud and unrepentant. 

 

                "Has my General disgraced your Lady?" He tilted his head as if he was scolding a child. His cobra hood fluttered, and he could feel venom flooding his tongue. "I would not expect such harsh action from an avian handmaiden if her Lady's honor had not been threatened."

 

                "I merely said the truth, Emperor. We came here to take back a traitor, not give them the stronghold it took most of the year to capture." Hux coughed in between the words. He smelled like a snake cooked in a forest fire. Kylo ignored him, walking towards his knights who flank him with the slightest movement. "The Lady and I have reached an agreement. For the sakes of our people...”

 

                He breathes in deep. 

 

                “We will be wed.”

 

                A single breeze flutters the tops of the meadowgrass, the trees have gone quiet, even the clouds in the sky seems to be holding its breath. The sun hid behind one that looked like it brought rain. A hiding sun is a sign of an uncertain future, but he’d take anything that was not a bad omen. 

 

_                 “Have you gone insane?” _ Hux stomped his way forward, shaking and red in the face in his rage. “The Supreme Leader—” Kylo waved his fingers, stealing all the air in his lungs and choking him. To his credit, he did not cry out or make any outward sign that his lungs were burning inside him. Hux nodded, in a way that he knew he would have to prepare for. Revenge from Hux always came slow but always meticulous and many-layered. No one had tried to poison him as often as Hux did, and he lusted for Kylo’s crown like it was air. He was still alive for the sole reason that even though he was not as detail-oriented and good at noticing the turns of plans in motion, he was adept at sensing intent. 

 

                “Anyone else?” He angled his head in the direction of his Knights, but none made any indication of dissent. As expected, since their loyalty is to him---which comforted him for a strange reason which he decided he would meditate upon later. He glanced at Rey, but she’d turned her back to him and was talking in a hushed voice to her handmaiden and the leader of her guard. The latter, a man he recognized but did not know the name of, was listening to his queen but had his eyes on him, looking with suspicion. He turned away to look at the queen only when Rey called for his attention, and he nodded at something she said. 

 

                “We will be wed,” Rey repeated. Her attendants are silent now, they had been tense but the confusion outweighed everything else in their minds. Their queen, though, was a bastion of calm. Her hope in their decision glowed, her magic like a golden sunrise. “We have suffered this war too long, and this truce will be the beginning of an understanding, then hopefully peace. Today, I declare the war as over.” She looks at him. 

 

                “The war is over.” 

 

...

 

                In the darkest depths, a single torch with a flame that has burned since the beginning of the snake on its belly and the bird in the sky casts the eternal dance of light and darkness on the wall, they writhe and turn in the arms of each other, telling of the ages past and present. But not of the uncertain and unknowable. The echoing sound of water dropping from a stalactite is interrupted. A shadow whispers to another, “It is done.”

 

                A kindly spirit smiles. 

 

...

 

                “It is not ideal,” Holdo says, already calculating the risks and the odds in her head. But Rey saw her small smile of mischief before it was replaced with casual contemplation, and she knew that deep inside, her mother approved of this recklessness. This was something the Alula would have done if she thought of it earlier, and if only the emperor that came before was less of an unhinged, power-hungry madman whose only desire was immortality. An attempt at peace by marriage to Palpatine would only consume their country whole in his quest for the impossible, any agreement with him would only tip the scales in his favor. At least with Kylo Ren they have a chance that the groom would wait until the wedding night to attempt sacrificing his wife to the old gods. 

 

                “But it is your decision, Rey. You are queen now. I will support you in this and I trust that you will commit yourself to it. You are not marrying only the Emperor, you are marrying his kingdom, too. When he is yours, his people will be also. Those you have spent your entire life trying to kill, now you will be feeding, clothing, defending. Before you ask our people to open your arms to them, you have to  _ first _ , my child.” Holdo lifted her cup and sipped. She’d brought out her favorite tea from Gatalenta, a special blend of Deychin flowers with a spicy-sweet aftertaste. It kept them awake in the late hour of the night, when the breeze from the open balcony doors brought a chill that tempted to lull her to sleep. 

 

                “This is why I am asking for your cooperation, mother. I will go to serpiente lands before my coronation. Only three days. The Emperor and I have agreed that we need to announce each other in the most opportune moments, and he suggested that we do my announcement to the serpiente at the Corusca festival. Most of the dignitaries will be there and majority of the populace will be paying attention.”

 

                “Appropriate, very opportune indeed. Wear something with velvet. Your intended seems to favor darker shades, so take that into consideration.” Rey tried not to let her surprise show. She had a hard time accepting that it came this easy. The twin stars in the east blinked right next to the Alula’s evening lavender hair, and she sighed. Her people would not be as hospitable as her mother. 

 

                “I will announce him as my chosen at my coronation, after I receive the crown. We have asked all involved to keep shut about the pact, but any longer and all those who swore to secrecy will have their tongues loosen as soon as they think of ways around their promises.”

 

                “Make him wear something gold.” Rey raised an eyebrow as she stirred her now cold tea, urging a bit of heat back into it with the Force. It steamed as she picked it up again. 

 

                “It compliments his eyes. And for the love of the goddess please force him out of his mask. Everyone will think that you have an impostor if he wears it.” 

 

                Rey nodded, and silence settled over them once more. Velvet and gold, unusual in marriages to the Alula, which usually involves polished silver Chalcedony, a dress made of Cerlin and Fleuréline weave—symbols of the strength of the crown and the queen's elevated status as the goddess in mortal form. The fabric represented the goddess's maidenhood, of promise and hope. Velvet was worn to represent her more earthly aspects, of rebirth and passion, it was worn by an apprentice taking a consort she  _ loves _ . 

 

                She sips her tea. There was a hint of bitterness in it that she washed away by sipping more. 

 

                It was a good angle, it would foster whispers of a deeper bond between her and the enemy, something sensational that would sway their people to think less of the controversial marriage and more of the secret love affair that they would now apparently have to stoke interest in. Everyone, even the most uptight of her council, enjoy talk about forbidden love. 

 

                Holdo’s shoulders were remained set in a strange angle, and her primaries were twitching, almost touching the floor. She sighed.

 

                “You wanted to ask me something, Alula?” Holdo smiled. She rarely had the chance to be a mother to her, always a queen first before a woman. The corners of her eyes had wrinkled in time, her hands though smooth and soft were now veined, the bracelets around her fists fit more loosely--she had since returned the bracelet that the Kaiburr had previously rested on, opting for a ring, made of shaped aurodium and electrum alloy that was polished, textured and blackened to mimic the twisting branches of the uneti tree. Once, those Force-sensitive trees grew throughout the whole continent, but the wars have levelled most of them down. The last remaining two that survived lives in the Old Forest, remnants of a world almost forgotten. They were the first trees she’d seen, their giant canopies touching and encompassing most of the Old Forest as she saw them from above. She remembered wanting to be put down so she could look, but found her courage lacking. From the branches, spinebarrels and nightbloomers flanked both sides of the Kaiburr, pink Ankarres Sapphires. 

 

                "I– I know that you've been as enthusiastic as Paige when it came to other aspects of ruling." 

 

                "Yes?" 

 

                "But not of the more artful ways of ruling over your consort." Rey blinked rapidly, cheeks heating. "And of the ways to enjoy yourself in the process. These are things that can be taught, as Paige so requested when she discovered that it could be." Holdo stared at her intently, turning her spoon over and over. She didn’t look disturbed by the topic, and the fiddling was probably more to distract Rey and calm her nerves than anything else.  

 

                "I don't think the Emperor is the kind of man that indulges in—"

 

                "Most men do, my child. I just want you to learn how to protect yourself, and how to make it so that you won't be hurt. It should not concern me, but I've noticed that you aren't as-- Ah, as  _ adventurous _ as your sisters. You are a woman, Rey. And the Emperor is still a man. There is more to your marriage than negotiating peace between your domains. Knowing these things could be vital to your reign. Consider it." 

 

...

 

                Like all things that she thought would make her confused and dredge up thoughts of wanting and needing, Rey buried the conversation and locked it away in the place she taught herself to be forbidden to touch. She went about her day with Rose and Kaydel whispering in her ear about the preparations, both for the coronation and the marriage. They seemed engrossed in their work, but Rey had to often get them back on track after they stray to gossiping about the Emperor. 

 

_                 The black king sheds his women more often than his scales. Lady, the cobra's tongue is as skilled as the hand that holds his blade.  _ Unladylike giggling. Rey's hand had faltered over the holo that she was reading, bumping the edge on the table that the words on the screen flickered before they returned.

 

_                 Ah, I don't know where you get your whispers, Rose. The Emperor has not even touched a woman's hand. They have never seen his skin since he was a young man. They say he even sleeps with his armor and mask on. Our Lady, you might even have to  _ teach _ him.  _

 

_                 Do you think he is ashamed?  _ Rose had leaned in, and pitched her voice low enough that she couldn't hear.

 

_                 Do you want to bet on it, Tico? A man as big and arrogant as he is would be flaunting it if he hefted a blade as large.  _

 

_                 That's why I believe that he… _

 

_                 I guess the Lady would tell us if— _

 

                They looked to her flaming cheeks once, and then stared at each other conspiratorially. Rey made sure to ignore them, hastily working to escape as soon as she can. When she went back to her quarters, she dipped herself in ice-cold water and put on her most comfortable nightdress, intent on escaping to sleep as long as possible. But her dreams offer no such peace. 

 

                They brought her to the nesting grounds of the North, the waves crashing into ageless stone and shaping them to their crests. She walked on the slippery inclines, small stones and the mushy soil sticking to her bare feet. By this time of the year, the nests would be done and the eggs were soon to come. She could hear mating calls soar over the sound of the ocean.

 

                She felt him step into her dream.

 

_                 "I'm tired. I'd rather not do this now." _

 

_                 "Yeah, me too." _

 

                She turns to him, and then immediately looks away. He looked like he just stepped out of his bath, hair still damp and sticking messily to his forehead and his neck, skin flushed pink with heat. And he was almost naked. 

 

_                 "Don't you have a cowl or something you could put on?" _

 

                Her only consolation was that his pants covered half of his abdomen, so that the image of the toned stomach she just  _ knew _ he had was not ingrained into the back of her eyelids. She had enough thoughts of his face and the peeks of his nape that she saw under his mask to keep herself awake at night. In the corner of her eyes, he straightens and stretches even taller. His arms and chest look like he could wrestle great eagles with his bare hands. It was not hard to imagine them around her, lifting her like she was nothing but air.

 

_                 "This is  _ your _ dream, my alwina. The form I come in is the way you wish to see me. Strange how the Force works, does it?" _

 

_                 "Why would I wish to see you—"  _ She ached to step back, but didn't want to give him the edge. The ocean winds flutter her skirts and shape them to the back of her legs. His eyes flashed like garnets, a sly smile threatening to bloom on his lips but not quite so.

 

_                 "Why, indeed." _

 

_                 "You're a monster." _

 

_                 "Yes. Yes, I am."  _ He drags his eyes over her body, just once, but the heat touches her just the same.  _ "But you seem partial to monsters." _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I just now realized that I could put more links here 😅
> 
> [ Kaiburr Crystal ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kaiburr_crystal)
> 
> The homeland of the crows is falcons is [ Hays Minor ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hays_Minor) after the Tico sisters' homeworld. The falcons' is [ Gatalenta ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gatalenta) from Holdo's homeplanet.
> 
> The incident Rose talks about is the [ Hosnian Cataclysm or the Starkiller Incident ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hosnian_Cataclysm)
> 
> [ Deychin Tea ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Deychin_tea) is from Gatalenta  
>    
> [ Chalcedony ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chalcedony)  
>    
> [ Cerlin ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cerlin)
> 
> [ Fleuréline weave ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Fleur%C3%A9line_weave)
> 
> [ Kaiburr Crystal ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kaiburr_crystal)
> 
> [ Uneti Trees ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Uneti_tree)
> 
> [ Ankarres Sapphires ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ankarres_Sapphire)
> 
> Rey's Ring looks like this:  
> 
> 
> Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at twitter! [ @sinaingsinala ](https://twitter.com/sinaingsinala)


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